UNIT UK 25: Bed Rest
by ComsatAngel
Summary: Rendered static in a hospital bed, Lieutenant Walmsley recalls his first meeting with the Fourth Doctor, and keeps his promise to The Man Upstairs about looking after a hospice for terminallyill children.


UNIT UK 25

Let me tell you, a hospital bed is a great place for doing a bit of reflective self-analysis. For one thing, if you happen to be part of an organisation that can arrange for a private room (UNIT Medical Arrangement Fund Contract 1972), then you don't have to share your personal space with unhealthy types on the brink of death, or imminent lung collapse. Being restricted to bed means that you can't go wandering off to amuse yourself elsewhere, especially since the sharp-eyed ward nurses know better than to risk Matron's ire by letting injured officers toddle off on their own.

Yes, there I was in a single room of Stoke Mandeville. This hospital is the nearest large medical facility to UNIT Aylesbury's headquarters, and has consequently taken in several dozen injured troopers and officers over the years. They know how to remain discreet in the face of the press, who occasionally turned up with Jimmy Saville in tow – no, I don't follow that bit either – but remained capable of caring for the mysterious injured.

My command at Aylesbury were unhappy that I was _hors de combat_. There was proof – a huge "Get Well" card big as a bedsheet, signed by every man in my unit and a few besides. One wag, with a fine eye for detail, had drawn a cartoon on the back. "Come back soon sir" it read, "because Master Sergeant Dobbs is watching us and we're _scared_" with a pretty good caricature of the enormously ugly American NCO watching a couple of sweaty UNIT privates.

At first I'd been flattered by the private accomodation, until one of the auxiliaries let slip that it was hospital policy to keep UNIT staff out of the way.

Anyway, having to lie on my side all day long with minimal distraction or entertainment allowed me to conduct a mental review of what led to me ending up here. No single thing too deadly taken in isolation, except there were plenty of single things. How did it begin - ?

- with Captain March, standing outside the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's White Fish Authority building, head in hands. I didn't see this, since a medical orderly was patching up a nasty big gouge on my lower right ribs where a bullet bounced off. This was so unpleasantly painful that I grabbed a biro and bit it to avoid wailing like a baby.

Lieutenant Eden came into the WFA building to see how I was, and to gleefully retail Captain March's pained demeanour. The Captain came through a minute later himself.

'Christ, John, have you seen how many ambulances there are outside!' he said, through gritted teeth.

'Not my doing, Fitz,' I replied. You can get away with first name terms after about a year, or nine months, if in dire peril. 'I only killed one man, in self-defence. He shot me first! The rest are victims of SIGMUND or that evil little ginger scrote working for the bloody computer dictator.'

Captain March sighed, with feeling.

'You can tell it to the Brig; he's here in London right now, you know. He and the Doctor have been chasing a UFO and shape-shifting aliens bent on blowing up the capital.'

Actually Fitz exaggerated. The shape-shifting Zygons were only trying to destroy the World Energy Conference and all it's international delegates, sowing the seeds of conflict.

That settled matters in my mind. If the Doctor was back in town, literally, I wanted to see him. For the past couple of weeks I'd been chasing a rogue supercomputer and it's mind-washed human minions before they destroyed Europe or the Northern Hemisphere in a nuclear conflagration, my clued-up state all thanks to a single sentence the Doctor left before zooming off into the far distant future.

The Doctor? No, not what or who you think, even with me being stuck in a hospital. Doctor John Smith is an alien. Humanoid, very much so, and indisputably the smartest being on planet Earth bar none. He also comes with a time-travelling machine called "TARDIS", which enables him to zip around in time and space as easily as I get into Aylesbury on the bus. Well, maybe a taxi, public transport being what it is.

After being certified capable of moving, I took up residence in the convoy of UNIT vehicles moving out of London and headed back to Aylesbury. Harry Sullivan, our recently-absent Medical Officer, had suddenly reappeared, as had Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah does, or did, most of the typing around Aylesbury. This happy arrangement meant she got inside information for her distant future best-selling history of UNIT – according to the Doctor – and we got a trained typist with an incredibly high security rating who never divulged information.

Harry's position in his absence had been covered by his paramour, Doctor Jean Eastlake. Unfortunately for him, I think that the normally-chilly Major Crichton had rather taken a shine to Jean. Given that the Major usually operates in a manner akin to a liquid-helium fuelled freezer, this is a big tick of approval for Jean. Harry had seriously ticked her off by zooming away with the Doctor. Relationships, eh?

All this silent cogitation was interrupted by that other institution of hospitals – visiting hours.

Basically, visiting hours are great. All you have to do is recline there, eating grapes, playing the Injured Hero, soaking up the praise and sympathy. Everyone else has to do the hard work of travelling and turning up on time.

And the first pair of visitors, to my absolute undiluted horror, were Mum and Dad. They'd thoughtfully been informed by UNIT's Kensington office about their son being WIA and currently undergoing treatment, and they drove down from Wigan post-haste, bless them.

Mum, predictably, wasn't impressed at me getting shot. She told me off and then draped herself across me, sniffing a bit. She'd been much the same on my first posting to Ulster with the Regulars, and ever since could be relied upon to identify me as being the victim in any televised riot, bombing, shooting or traffic accident.

'Honestly, mum, I've been hurt worse on the rugby pitch,' I tried to reassure her, patting her shoulderblades and knocking the breath out of her to boot. My dad cocked an inquisitive and knowing eye behind her back, so I silently nodded frantically to convince him I was telling the truth, mouthing _honestly_ at him.

She had also worried dreadfully about her only begotten son starving to death in hospital, so she'd brought along a shopping bag full of food to hide in my bedside locker.

'Sorry, Matron said no alcohol,' apologised my Dad. After that I had to give a potted account of how I got shot, leaving out most of the mayhem for fear of worrying my mum and having my dad think I was a bloodthirsty monster.

'Marie will be pleased at the dry ward. She has always insisted I drink too much in military company.'

There was a bit of umming and ahhing at that, since they've only briefly met Marie, and mum didn't entirely approve of an older divorcee getting claws into her baby.

'Talking of military, I think you might care to have this,' said Dad, handing over a carrier bag containing an incredibly battered notebook, dark with grime and sweat, edges frayed, spine broken in umpteen places. 'Your grandad's journal. From the Great War.'

'Wow!' I exclaimed. My grandad: Black Charlie Walmsley, evil alcoholic wife-beating swine detested by the whole family. Also a genuine war hero with multiple decorations and wound stripes.

'I never bothered to read it. But you seemed interested in the horrid old sot's record, so you're welcome to it. Might take your mind off being in here.'

Mum, being a midwife and thus nursey-qualified, wanted to know why I was in hospital in the first place, if the injury wasn't too serious.

Thank Doctor Eastlake.

Those were my visitors for the first day on the ward.

Later in the afternoon I spent time making a list of all the people and institutions I'd offended, annoyed and embarassed.

Special Branch, they didn't like me, since I nearly shot a car full of them dead when they tried a traffic intercept. MI5 didn't like me, since I'd arranged for them to get decoyed away from the brain-washing supercomputer, until SIGMUND was a collection of scrap, blown apart, smashed or short-circuited. The MAFF didn't like me, since their White Fish Authority building needed to be refurbished from the ground up, at a cost of about four hundred thousand pounds. I'd been disrepectfully cheeky with three of my country's top politicians. The American Ambassador wasn't happy about my skin being saved by two of his country's military on attachment to UNIT, since the American duo had killed half a dozen of SIGMUND's murderous minions. The RMP – sorry, "Royal Military Police" – didn't like me very much as I'd killed one of their members stone dead, shooting him twelve times after smashing his windpipe.

I'd even managed to cross swords with the Doctor – again, and despite doing almost exactly the same thing when a novice at Aylesbury the year before.

After clambering out of the Lannie at Aylesbury, which took a minute thanks to the bandaging around my ribs, I trooped inside with all the other staff. The Doctor's characteristic shock of white hair was nowhere to be seen amongst our flock, so I reasoned he must have gotten inside earlier thanks to a lift in his delta-wing hoverjetplane.

Tig, our foxcub mascot, came out to greet everyone on the front steps with an eager bark. In return he got handfuls of Polo's thrown to him. The Assault Platoon wanted to take him up North and into Scotland, only to be vetoed by CSM Benton. He didn't want a Scottish farmer being murdered for hitting our mascot with both barrels of buckshot.

I headed off for the Doctor's laboratory. If he wasn't in general circulation then he'd be hunkered down in there, making curious stinks with chemicals or cannibalising QSM Campbell's "volunteered" stock. He must be here at Aylesbury, since he had to use UNIT transport to get back to the TARDIS, which he'd carelessly left in Scotland, according to Harry Sullivan. That surprised me – given the sophistication of TARDIS I expected it to follow him around like a faithful terrier.

One of the reasons I wanted to see Doctor John Smith was his identified presence on a photograph from the Sixties, except that the 1966 Doctor John Smith didn't bear any resemblance to the late 1976 Doctor. They both had white hair, and that was it. Different build, different height, different face, not to mention different clothes.

Now, bear in mind that I'd been off at Maiden's Point whilst UNIT were dealing with the giant robot and Think Tank. That left a gap in my experience which I didn't really appreciate until this very moment.

Palming open the double-doors into the open-plan basement lab, I boldly stalked inside. There was already someone in here before me, a tall character messing about with the technical kit arrayed on a table.

That's a big no-no, straight away. The Doctor goes apoplectic if people mess with his equipment or experiments underway.

'Excuse _me_!' I barked, aware that if the Doctor came in and found this idiot confounding results then there'd be ructions.

'Hello there John,' replied the mystery individual without turning around. This was a good trick, which I didn't follow, quite. Probably he called everyone "John".

'The Doctor will go spare if he catches you mucking his stuff around. Oy! Are you paying attention!'

That last sentence came out because the gentleman ten yards away didn't seem to notice that I existed.

'Yes. And I rather doubt your resident Time Lord will be bothered.'

This character was too cool. I didn't recognise him, and I knew everyone at Aylesbury by sight, which meant he was either a Visitor or a spy. Moving past the cupboards and Bunsen burners, I came at him from the right, watching carefully for any signs of strangeness. My right hand went behind my back, ready to draw the Browning pistol if anything fruity began happening.

The stranger was tall, six feet if anything, with a mad mop of curly black hair surmounted by a Stetson. Yes, a great big cowboy hat. A gigantic rainbow scarf went round his throat umpteen times and dangled to the floor on either side. The scarlet smoking jacket might, just might, have been an article that the Doctor wore, if this one hadn't been battered, dirty and torn.

'Hello Lieutenant!' he beamed at me, suddenly turning and unleashing a massive smile underneath eyes that threatened to pop from their sockets.

'Stop messing about with the Doctor's kit or I'll have your guts for garters. And how did you know my name is John?'

The second-hand uniform I wore didn't even have badges of rank on.

'Or what my rank is?'

He shrugged and made a big open-armed gesture.

'Don't you remember me?' and his expressive, flexible face contorted into a frown.

'I think I'd remember if we'd met,' I tried, as drily as possible. True enough. A person looking like this – you'd remember them.

With a percussive snap of his fingers, the stranger's face abruptly shifted from frown to smile of understanding.

'Aha! Of course, you were away in Yorkshire when I came back from Metabelis and our paths haven't crossed since.'

One mention of "Metabelis" and anyone from Aylesbury will pay close attention. The name refers to a planet run by giant telepathic spiders of the future, killer fascist giant spiders to boot, that had invaded Earth temporarily, in a small way. By way of Aylesbury.

Seeing that I wasn't completely convinced, the stranger reached into a pocket and offered me a crumpled paper bag.

'Jelly baby?'

This had to be a wind up! The Doctor dined on Chardonnay and Veuve Cliquot, washing down pickled walnuts and pate de fois gras. He definitely did not scoff sweets obtainable at the corner shop.

'John, don't you remember Trevilho?' chided the stranger. 'The Soviet Union? Ninety-sixty nine?'

Parking my behind on the bench, I looked at the stranger. Yes, the Doctor and I had ventured into the recent past, and the USSR, into the town of Trevilho and a situation of dire peril. My written report on the same was circulated only within UNIT, at Cabinet level or higher.

'Okay, you know me, and my rank, and about Trevilho and Russia. How can that be?'

Bong! Like a bell, the realisation came – that phrase someone mentioned in passing about the Doctor being "a changed man". I fumbled in my wallet for the frayed picture of the frail old pensioner also claiming to be the Doctor. 'Is this you as well?'

My companion blinked enormously at the faded photo, then broke into a grin.

'Nineteen sixty six, wasn't it? WOTAN and the Post Office Tower?'

Oh yes it certainly was.

'You should know, you left me that warning note about Think Tank and the SRS being slaves to a computer.'

He seemed to be taken aback by that.

'Did I? Did I really?' followed by a massive theatrical gesture to the heavens. ' Oh yes! "A tale of sound and fury", signifying a considerable amount when you get down to brass tacks. Yes. From what I hear, you managed to defeat the computer threat?'

I glowered at him, an expression I am good at.

'Yes we did. Eventually. A bit more detail would have helped, you know.'

He tapped the side of his still-impressively large nose.

'Ah, now. The principle of _laissez-faire_, you understand. Humans have got to get used to helping themselves, instead of having others think for them. Dear me, I'm starting to sound like the most pompous Gallifreyan imaginable!'

A _what_?

'You could have made things simpler for yourself by just setting off the fire system, you know.'

Fine with twenty-twenty hindsight. Yes, setting off the sprinkler system would have short-circuited all the computers bar the one in the basement, and the flooding would have seen that one off, too. Probably.

'Besides all that, Doctor, can you explain how you look younger now than you used to – or looked older in the past, and appear completely different overall. With a different personality, too.' Those damn jelly babies!

The Doctor – I'd admitted to myself that he had to be the Doctor – swept one end of his scarf over a shoulder and stuck both hands in his trouser pockets

'Regeneration, John; regeneration. It's not immortality – or indestructibility, despite your comparison with Captain Scarlet – because we Timelords have a finite number of regenerations. Twelve is the norm. And it's a bagatelle, a lottery, because our DNA manufactures a novel phenotype, in the creation of which we have no conscious input.'

The crack about Captain Scarlet convinced me – I'd once been stranded in a lift with the Doctor for thirty minutes, during which he'd first mentioned regeneration and I joked about Gerry Anderson and indestructible Captain Scarlet. More fool me, since I then spent ten minutes explaining about Spectrum and Mars and the Mysterons whilst the Doctor made tutting noises about someone from the future scriptwriting in the past. To this day I don't know if he was joking elaborately at my expense or if Mr Anderson needs to take a long hard look at his scriptwriters.

I took a long hard look at this stranger. Different body, different clothes, different personality, the same memory.

'So let me see if I've got this straight. You have a completely different body. Your personality is different. Your memory is still the same? And the same holds true for the gent in that photograph?'

A silent nod from the big Stetson hat was my sole reply.

'Wow! So this is your third body, or regeneration. Model. Mark, version or whatever.'

A silent shake of the head this time.

No? Not the third.

'Fourth?'

The Doctor nodded.

'Ask the Brigadier about the Cyberman invasion of nineteen sixty eight. It was their first attempt after my first regeneration. In that body you see in the photograph, my first body, I encountered the Cybermen in their second attempt, ten years from now.'

This attempt to explain bent my mind into a Moebius loop. How could someone who seemed older be younger in the future and have an older version of themselves in the past – Oh I give up. Timelords. You need a mind made of infinitely flexible plastic to keep up with them.

I have to give credit to Jo Grant and SJS if they can keep their wits about them whilst zipping around in space and time, possibly meeting themselves or their parents in the future or past. Especially SJS, since she'd knocked around with the Doctor when he was in his previous version and also this one.

'Doesn't it get confusing?' I asked.

'You get used to it after the first three hundred years!' joked the Doctor. At least, I think it was a joke. As with all versions of the Doctor, you have to filter his sense of humour via human humour, and amend in accordance with his current regeneration, then take away the number you first thought of.

That brought me back to the present. I'd been in hospital for three hundred years already, or three days, whichever you wanted to believe.

Once again I'd managed to mistake the Doctor for someone else. The first time I honestly believed him to be one of Aylesbury's medical staff. This time he'd acted like a real doctor and eventually clucked in annoyance at the blood staining my borrowed combat jacket, sending me off to sickbay.

Oh – another person I'd annoyed. Doctor Eastlake. She was quietly furious at me when I asked if she could change the dressing.

'John! What the bloody hell have you been doing!' and she ignored my reply whilst checking the injury. 'This needs stitching at the very least. Sit still!'

'I can't,' I confessed. Little Ginger Git from the White Fish Authority building had raked my left buttock with an improvised glass dagger.

'Lieutenant Walmsley,' she began, in a Very Strict Doctor tone of voice. 'What happened to you? Tell me!'

'Er – I got shot.'

'The rib. And?'

'Stabbed. In the arse. Left cheek.'

She raised both eyebrows and I carried on.

'Electrocuted. They tried to zap me with brainwashing headphones but it didn't work.'

'I see. Brainshrinking is more - '

'And I got beaten up several times.'

Hissing under her breath, Jean checked me over and consigned me to Stoke Mandeville via ambulance. So here I was.

The next pair of visitors were Liz Shaw and Marie Valdupont, my girlfriend. Liz looked pale and wan, Marie looked drawn and worried. They'd been chauffered to the hospital by CSM Benton.

Marie went down on one knee by the side of my bed, and I could see that her eyes were puffy and reddened. Crying – confirmed by the lack of mascara. She took my hand in hers, whilst my heart danced madly at what might have upset her so much.

'Oh you are so stupeed John to get shot what would I do if you were killed dead I was zo worried! _Une bruit collosal_!' and she started to tear up. Her English pronunciation rarely falters, which shows that today she was extremely upset.

Women, eh? Oh, is that a slap from my better self?

'Being shot hurts, a lot. In future I'm going to be like Tig. Think clever, not get shot.'

'I should theenk so! You peeg, I was so worried!' she snappishly replied, resorting to a stream of machine-gun French, ending with a retort and a slap of my cheek before storming out of the room.

' "Her brother"? 'I translated whilst rubbing the stinging cheek. 'She doesn't have a brother.'

Liz shook her head at Marie's sudden departure, then drew up a chair.

'No, she doesn't. John, be more considerate in future, will you? She went through an awful marriage, a horrible divorce and a very bad patch afterwards. Then she meets you and falls head over heels, and you nearly get yourself killed. '

Hey, I thought, frowning heavily.

'You can't criticise me – I'm the injured hero!'

Liz eyed me beadily.

'What about that Rutan girlfriend you have in the far future? The Doctor said you have a responsibility for those who feel for you. That includes Marie.'

'Can you catch up with her and send her back in?' I asked.

' 'Spose so,' Liz replied, aiming for nonchalance. 'Oh – I'm still off the fags. Do you know anything about that?'

'Well obviously that's the post-hypnotic programming of SIGMUND at work, making you maintain a healthy lifestyle by avoiding what's bad for you.'

That was well obviously me bullshining – when I encountered a brainwashed Liz in the basement of the WFA building it seemed a good idea to help her avoid the evils of tobacco.

'No cigarettes but lots of Polos,' she continued. 'Which are also not good for you.'

There were several unanswered questions hanging in the air after that, but I give Liz her due, she went and tracked Marie down and brought her back to my room. I ambushed her when she came into the room, grabbing her around the waist and kissing her neck.

'I'll just stay out here,' explained Liz, diplomatically and at a distance, closing the door.

'Uff!' squirmed Marie, wriggling free of my grip. '_Cochon_!'

'_Loup garou_,' I argued, grabbing her hands. 'Hey hey, I know you were upset, but I don't intend to let what happened to me happen again in future. No, really. Like I said, be smart, act like Tig and avoid getting shot. Getting shot hurts like buggery.'

We got into a passionate clinch after that, with Marie murmuring in French.

'Hang on,' I warned her. 'This door doesn't lock and Matron is always on the prowl.' I cracked it open an inch.

'Hello sir,' said CSM Benton, looking across the ward, sitting on a chair directly in front of the door and thus preventing anyone from getting in. 'Good to see you feeling a bit more frisky, like.' A Sterling SMG lay across his lap and I doubt anyone fond of living would have tried to get into my room.

'Oh! Mister Benton! Er - '

He gave me a silent, deadpan wink as I closed the door. Propriety forbids me from mentioning any more.

Later in the evening, when the wards were quiet, lights were dim and I had time to think, I hobbled off down the corridors to a phone that gulped down ten pence pieces at an alarming rate.

'A special separate bank account?' repeated the Duty Officer at UNIT's Kensington offices.

'That's right. I want it to be titled "Saint Luke's Hospice Fund".'

'Is this an official request?' he asked, clearly suspicious.

'You bet it is!' I bluffed. 'The Brigadier - '

'Okay, on it,' he collapsed instantly. 'It'll be open for deposits and transfers by oh nine hundred tomorrow.'

Hmm, what you can do by bluffing. Of course, if the Brig found out about my cavalier use of his authority without permission, then I'd be for the high jump.

Feeling pretty pleased with myself, I went back to my room. The young, tired black nurse who had the thankless task of watching patients during the evening and night gave me a warning look when I came back onto the ward.

'Don't go wandering around like that,' she wearily told me.

'Sorry but I had to,' I smarmed. 'Helping terminally sick kids. G'night!'

Back in my room, I dined on a Mars bar from the collection brought by my mum, and made a few notes about how to action the Saint Luke's fund.

"_Sponsored run – perhaps fancy dress??? CSM Benton as a teddy bear Nick as a weasel The Boy as a Cub Scout. How far – not too far or risk runners dying from lack of fitness esp. officers. Self out of running !!! due to recent injuries. Tig involved somehow??? Cpl Dene/Twiss to action."_

A timid knock came from the flimsy panel door before it was opened by a West Indian nurse, the same one who'd told me off for doing an evening walkabout.

'Sorry to disturb you. Did you mention terminally-ill children?' she murmured, keeping it quiet to prevent the patients getting woken.

'Ah. Er – yes. Yes I did. Why do you ask?'

'I'm Trinnie. I'll be in touch,' she whispered and vanished.

Apparently it is a given that the females of this world behave oddly in my presence. Consigning Trinnie to the far reaches of Hades, I took myself back to bed with the dirty, tatty journal kept by Black Charlie Walmsley. I only intended to glance at it, but the damn thing took my attention so much I didn't put it down before midnight.

Black Charlie, as I knew already, had been a volunteer in August 1914, joining the newly-expanding British Army the instant war was declared. According to my dad, who got the story from older relatives, grandad Charlie utterly hated and loathed the boredom and routine of life in a Wigan textile mill and was the very first in line at the recruiting office in Manchester. In the journal, which maintained a healthy attachment to reality, he'd been number ten or eleven in that queue, but he'd punched the man in front of him senseless, and repeated the process twice, and the survivors let him in first. There were entries following that which detailed the farcial process of training without uniforms or weapons, and Charlie getting billeted on poor Lancashire folk who found his dialect hard to understand, until he ended up in the trenches in mid-1916. The horrors of total war waged against his fellow man didn't bother Charlie one bit, to judge by the ghastly little anecdotes he wrote in his crabbed hand in black ink.

Tellingly, he wrote of an incident during a trench-raid he went on, where an inexperienced junior subaltern panicked and ordered that the patrol surrender to the Germans. Charlie "levelled" the officer – I don't know if this was an euphimism for knocking him senseless or killing him on the spot – and took the patrol back to British lines. Charlie was transferred to the Yorks and Lancs regiment, which meant he survived the first day of the Somme, only to be injured by shellfire on the second day.

By this time my eyes felt gritty and tired, so I stopped and went to sleep promptly, enduring some unpleasant vignettes about the First World War. If I'd known what was due to happen the next year I'd have been having screaming nightmares.

Breakfast next day was porridge, which I loaded with sugar and milk. This is how sassenachs eat it, instead of poisoning themselves with salt as my erstwhile colleague Nick insists.

Marie and Liz came back in the afternoon visiting session.

'I brought you some books,' explained Marie. 'Military 'istory, so you are not bored.'

How thoughtful. I gave her a big wet kiss until Liz harrumphed in annoyance.

'_When_ you two come up for air! Thank you. Really, they ought to put something in your tea. We can't stay very long, Marie is driving me to an appointment.'

Marie parked her curvy behind on the bed next to me, curled one arm around my shoulder and began to eat the grapes my mum had left. She gave me every second one, so I let her carry on.

'Oh, go home and snog Brian then,' I offered back. Curiosity kicked in. 'What kind of appointment?' because she looked very severely dressed: hair scraped into a bob, no makeup, and a trouser suit. If Liz wasn't showing off her legs then there was a reason.

'Mike Yates gave me the address of a psychiatrist he recommended,' declared Liz, defiantly.

Oh. Yes. Mike, who – truth be told – got rather a bum deal with his court martial now that I understood mind-controlling killer computers better.

'Good!' I said, with emphasis. 'I hope it goes well. Oh – can you peel me a banana, most dearest darling?'

Liz deigned to sit down on the rickety chair.

'I do recall some of what happened down in that horrid basement, before you blew SIGMUND apart. Didn't you state something along the lines of fancying me?'

Evil woman! Mischief-making in front of Marie, who paused in her unpeeling the banana to look at me with a raised eyebrow.

'Hey, you were about to shoot me! A feller's got to try something. Anything. I was desperate.'

Both women burst into laughter, having probably dreamt this little scenario up on the way here.

'Oh ha ha. You still haven't explained how you got caught.'

Marie poked me with the naked banana.

'Observe, Liz, how my lover attempts to change subjects.' I savagely bit the end off the banana.

'I got too close to the MAFF building. I reasoned it was one of five possible locations and went to check it out. The bloody armed guards came out of the lobby and dragged me inside. Probably been warned by some other slaves of SIGMUND.'

'Abducted off the street! And no-one did anything!' I complained, not having to fake annoyance.

'This is London, John,' Liz commented wryly. 'Plus they were in uniform.'

I couldn't speak for a few seconds, mouth full of banana, but my thunderous face doubtless told them how I compared Wigan and London.

'Miss Winters, Sheila, is also not to be prosecuted,' Marie informed me between eating grapes.

Mixed feelings there. Originally, as Liz remarked to Miss Winters, I'd felt like bashing her head in with a rock because of her involvement with the death of three of my men. Once her computer-control wore off, however, she made every effort to help us. After getting back to Aylesbury I found that nearly all the people controlled by SIGMUND were given conditional discharges. This was because there were so many of them – not merely the ones that SIGMUND turned into obedient little slaves, but the re-activated victims of the original WOTAN. Half Whitehall would have been gracing the indoors of HMP if they'd been prosecuted.

Before they left, Marie let drop the bombshell that her father, the icy and formidable Professor Valdupont, wanted us to spend Christmas with him. She left me with a wink.

That's a turn-up for the books, I told myself. The Professor made no bones about not liking me. I was English, a soldier and not titled, rich or well-connected. Plus, I was English, and in the armed forces. And English, not to beat the point to death.

I read more of Grandad Walmsley's journal in the early evening, which is where I learnt how he won the DSC. Officially, he'd rescued an injured British officer stranded in no-man's land under heavy fire, and brought him back to the British lines even when injured himself. As Black Charlie wrote it, three German soldiers had gotten to the officer first – a Captain Powell, whom Charlie seemed to respect – and were trying to carry him back to their own lines. One of them shot Charlie while he came at them from the rear, and the trio seemed to think that was the end of the affair.

Having been told from my dad's elder relatives about Black Charlie's fearful alchohol-fuelled rages, those unfortunate Germans couldn't have been more wrong. Back on his feet, he got to within thirty feet, shot one in the back, bayoneted another in the stomach, butt-stroked the third in the throat and got hold of Captain Powell. Hobbling back with his Lee-Enfield as a crutch, Charlie was careful to bash the shot German's head to bits with the butt end of his rifle, since " the bugger were still moving and had his K98" according to the journal.

My dad, who is as placid and amiable as a Labrador dog, insists that I get my temper from my mum. Reading Charlie's journal, I had to wonder.

In the evening, who showed up but Lieutenant Munroe, towing Harry Sullivan and The Boy Eden. Nick had a hundred watt smile running all the way around the back of his head.

'Just sit still a mo',' ordered Harry, metamorphosing into A Proper Doctor. He looked at the clipboard on my bed, checked me over, went out and spoke to Trinnie, then came back in and nodded affably. 'The prognosis is good, old chap.'

'Oh good!' I replied, a touch sarcastically. 'And where have you been? Gadding about with the Doctor and Sarah, I understand.'

'John, you won't believe where I've been!' he burst out. 'Off into the far future! Not here on Earth – well, briefly, when we scotched a plan by the Sontarans – but off on Neo-Phobos, and Space Station Nerva. And Skaro – home of the Daleks!'

'He's been like this ever since he got back,' Nick warned me. 'Not to mention the Zygotes.'

'Zygo_ns_,' corrected Harry.

'Pizza-men,' opined Nick. 'Bad skin.'

'Watch it in the mess,' I warned him. 'Where'd The Boy vanish to?'

'A nurse made googly eyes at him and he's gone to get her number,' explained Nick.

I groaned.

'Not the "I may not be alive by this time next week!" gambit!'

Nick looked me over curiously.

'Well, from what I hear whilst we were out chasing Nessie, you might not have been alive by this time today. What happened to you?'

Aha, time to boast proudly!

'I got shot!' I informed them, and The Boy, who came back into the room clutching a slip of paper as if his life depended on it.

'Shot? Pshaw, is that all!' mocked Nick.

'And stabbed. And electrocuted. And beaten. And nearly blown up. And nearly drowned.'

'Do you do this to deliberately upstage me!' snapped Nick. 'Damn. Thankfully I have my money to console me.'

He explained further.

How do you deal with submarine menaces occupying your inland waters? Why you blast them with enormous mortars dismounted from a Type 42 frigate and on loan from the Navy. The Brig's detachment had dropped huge anti-submarine mortar bombs all along Loch Ness, continuing long after the Brig left just to make sure. Net result of this exercise were thousands upon thousands of dead fish littering the shores of Loch Ness. The Brig's abrupt instruction on being radioed by Nick, who commanded the Assault Platoon remaining in the Highlands, was to "clear the damn mess up!"

Nick certainly did. Using his own money, he hired a refrigerated artic, then another, then another, and rang the nearest branch of MacFisheries. The Assault Platoon gathered up tons of dead fish and shovelled them into the artics, which delivered their fresh fish to the wholesalers. Net profit to Lt. Munroe came to five thousand pounds. All entirely legal – ordered to clear the mess by his CO, and thus preventing the shoreline of a major tourist attraction becoming befouled with stinking, rotting fish.

'Five grand!' I coughed.

'Split. I've given five hundred to UNIT mess funds, five hundred to the Enlisted and Other Ranks Benevolent Fund and I believe you have a little charity to be funded?'

'Yesss. The Saint Luke's Hospice Fund.'

He winked at me, turned away to conceal whatever mischief he was performing, then turned back and waved a slip of paper under my nose.

A cheque for one thousand pounds, made payable to Saint Luke's Hospice Fund.

Swearing loudly, I snatched the cheque from him.

'Gah! Yes I know this puts you one up, Munroe. A thousand pounds! Er - ' and I probably flushed beet red. 'Thank you.'

An airy wave from the money-making Scot merely made me feel even further in his debt, the Celtic –

'Oh, you missed Tom Horrigan's leaving do,' added Lieutenant Eden. 'A gigantic piss-up of heroic proportions, from all accounts.'

I tutted. Sergeant Horrigan had been my right hand man in the Battalion Transport organisation. Experienced, sensible, capable, unfazed by anything, he could have – and had – run the whole of Transport on his own. No blandishments would persuade him to re-up or stay in UNIT. No, he had money saved and was becoming a partner in a haulage company.

'Of course, they owe it all to me,' declared Nick airily, shining his nails on his blouse.

'I rather doubt that,' I scoffed. 'Tom could run rings round both of us organising anything. What do you mean?'

'Their company name, dear chap!' beamed Harry. 'Pretty clever. Originally they were going to be something like "Turnbull and Horrigan Haulage".'

Ex-sergeant Turnbull of the Royal Corps of Transport, who had done a tour in UNIT, was the other partner in this prospective company.

'So I suggested a contraction. "HorriBull Haulage". Has a ring to it, eh?' stated Nick, pinching a Mars bar.

That sowed the seeds of an idea with me, except that since it was a seed, I didn't recognise it at the time.

'Oh – before you leave to torment the populace at large, do you recall the time you went temporarily mad and worked hard, building that miniature landscape of HQ?'

Nick rolled his eyes.

'As if I'd demean myself with such manual work!'

'I'm serious,' I growled, seriously.

'Really?' he replied, getting interested. 'It wasn't me who built the thing. There are chaps out there who make a living building miniature models and scenery for the wargaming community. I've still got their names and phone numbers.'

For a professional soldier to get involved with wargaming in his spare time smacks of a busmans holiday to me. Then again, it did help Nick to get command of Assault Platoon.

After chasing them away, I went to ring Sister Fiannula Flanagan of Saint Luke's, and once again the bloody telephone ate my change at an alarming rate, which meant being less than clear in conversation.

'Why, yes, I do remember you, Lieutenant. What on earth are you calling at this hour for?'

'I need to know two things, Sister. Firstly, what kind of entertainment do your children need most of all.'

'Entertainment?' she asked, a catch in her soft Irish accent.

'You know, playgrounds, swings, that sort of thing. Outsidey stuff.'

'Oh. I see. Well,' she replied, pausing long over the last syllable. 'An adventure playground for the children would be simply splendid. The thing is, you see, that they're very expensive. For a - '

'And the second thing,' I brutally interrupted, 'Is how large the open ground next to the hospice is.'

'Oh, that's easy,' she said, almost smiling. 'Half an acre. It's where the herb garden and kitchen allotments were. Why do - '

'Thank you!' I raced on, my ten pences almost gone. 'I'llbebackintouchgoodnight!'

Next morning that most senior, exalted and Supreme High Being amongst the hospital staff came to see me, to wit, a Senior Consultant. He was tall and thin, with big shaggy eyebrows and soft brown eyes that belied his perceptiveness. He also came into my room alone, unaccompanied by a flock of lesser medical entities.

'Ah, Lieutenant Walmsley. He of the famous ribs.'

This instantly put me on my guard. My ribs had been battered apart by a swinish Sontaran officer on a trip to the far future; human medical technology of that same far future had then put my ribs back together again, and in a fashion that enthralled any doctor who met them.

The consultant poked, prodded, looked, tutted and hummed over my various injuries.

'Rather put yourself in harm's way, haven't you, Lieutenant?' was his summation.

'That's my job,' I defensively explained.

'Not what Alistair has said. Nor your Scientific Advisor. How is the Doctor, by the way?'

Hearing a doctor ask about The Doctor is slightly surreal. I merely looked baffled instead of replying properly. The consultant laughed to himself.

'Don't worry, I'm not trying to get information out of you. How does it go now? "To protect the human race against exotic threats" – no, that's not quite right – "To protect from exotic threats against the human commonwealth".'

Close enough. Hearing part of UNIT's secret charter recited from an unknown doctor began to make my flesh creep.

'You seem to be suspiciously well-informed.'

He waved a hand dismissively whilst looking at my clipboard.

'Pfft! I've been patching you chaps together for the past eight years. I think I've picked up one or two things about UNIT and the human condition.'

'What about _my_ condition?'

He shook his head gravely.

'You have intermittent hearing trouble, back strain, broken ribs, too many contusions to count and no self-regard when it comes to safety, young man. You won't get to be an old man if you continue like this.'

'I've decided to behave with more self-regard in future. Getting shot is not fun.'

'No,' he said, all humour vanishing from his voice. 'You were lucky.'

At that my eyebrows rose. Lucky! No way – lucky would be _not_ getting shot.

'I mean that bullet could have bounced the other way, into your abdomen instead of away from it. You'd be a lot worse off than you are now.'

Yes I would. Having a bullet turn your insides into a lace doiley is a bad thing. Hell, here I was after having a bullet not do a lot to me.


End file.
